Question I'm asking on behalf of a friend: he's looking for info on reggae albums in French (or Creole) released in the 70s. Specifically, he would be curious to identify any reggae albums in French or Creole released before 1977. Doesn't matter where from, just about language i.e. can be from France, Haiti, Martinique, Canada or whatever. I know there are quite a few individual reggae tunes in French on albums around this period but entire albums? Can't say I have seen one but I'm not really an albums person so much. Please apply your giant collective mind to this issue. Thanks!

There was also a 1977 compilation called Oye Oye Reggae with French remakes of various popular Riddims. Here's their versions of "one step forward" and "chase the devil" - not my cup of tea but reasonably well done

EDIT - these may have been singles, not a compilation. I don't own it (nor am I seeking it...)

And I had one reggae LP from Paris a few years ago (early 80s) I really can't recall the name at the moment. Kinda crap so I threw it away (flea market purchase..) compilation LP with various artists. Not the riddim LP mentioned here above. It had one track from the Midnight Groovers on it also..

thank you putting this on here- best reggae track ever, apart from most bob marley﻿ tracks

the Panoyaux sound systems happened in the 80's, not 70's. None of the toasters involved there recorded until the second half of the 80's.There were a lot of french-speaking reggae tunes from various countries, a number blending other music genres in their reggae.A lot mostly turned up from the early 80's on, at least when they came from metropolitan france.More came from other french-speaking places.And no, the site mentioned isn't as comprehensive as it may seem.One of the earliest french artist tohave recorded a reggae song is the dreadful Claude François, much before Gainsbourg.As far as i know, there has never been a whole reggae album recorded by french speakers before the late 70's reggae boom (from 78 to 80).Most of the french-speaking Antilles had their own vibrant music scenes and didn't go so crazy about reggae at first. A minority of people adopted it as their music of choice, though mainstream people had Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff or Steel Pulse in their collections. To put it straight, it was mostly viewed as junky music and rastas were mostly frowned upon(at best!)if not cast stones at! (at least, in the FWI).Haitian music wasn't much influenced by JA music (some tunes in the 70's):they were more busy influencing other french-speaking islands and african countries(Haiti took after Spanish-speaking islands and Africa).

Lankou what you're saying is very much in tune with our findings so far...

Incidentally I was recently making a comp of reggae tunes appearing on 1970s cadence albums from Guadeloupe/Martinique. Some are a bit earlier than the other stuff here e.g. 1975 or so, most of them are in English tho.